I Guess They'll Have to Find Another Way to Suppress Votes

Once a federal judge determined that the president*’s ridiculous “voter integrity” commission had to provide Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap—perhaps the commission’s primary in-house skeptic—with internal documents and emails, it became rather obvious that the commission was doomed and that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s time on the federal dime was running out. Sure enough, accompanied by the customary blizzard of lies from the White House, the commission was disbanded on Wednesday. From the NYT:

“Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry,” Mr. Trump said in a White House statement on Wednesday. “Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today I signed an executive order to dissolve the commission, and have asked the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues and determine next courses of action,” he said. In fact, no state has uncovered significant evidence to support the president’s claim, and election officials, including many Republicans, have strongly rejected it.

Mr. Trump established the commission after his repeated insistence, without credible evidence, that widespread voter fraud explained how Hillary Clinton received about 2.9 million more votes while he won the presidency in the Electoral College.

(In case you were wondering, that’s Timespeak for, “The president* is both a liar and delusional.”)

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However, that’s not to say that the administration—and Kobach—are letting this phantom issue go. On Thursday, the president*—or someone like him—got on the electric Twitter machine to push for the kind of voter ID beloved by Kobach and his fellow enemies of the franchise. I suspect we’ll see dubious “evidence” leaked to various friendly conservative media outlets. And, most ominous of all, Kobach says that the commission’s functions will be handed over to the Department of Homeland Security and specifically to the gentle ministrations of the folks at ICE.

But Mr. Kobach insisted in an interview that the commission’s work would not end but rather would be transferred to the Department of Homeland Security, one of the federal agencies charged with ensuring election integrity and one that he said critics would find more difficult to target. As a White House commission, the voter-fraud panel was subject to public-disclosure requirements and other restrictions that Mr. Kobach said opponents of the inquiry had seized on in “a determined effort by the left” to hamstring its investigation.

In other words, having been ordered by a federal court to be more transparent (to one of its own members!) the commission is handing off the job to an agency that is less transparent. Kobach is a real beauty, boy. From The Kansas City Star:

Kobach said that he would remain in close contact with the White House and the Department of Homeland Security as that agency begins to investigate the issue instead of the commission. He said Trump made the final decision to disband the commission Wednesday after multiple weeks of discussion on the matter. DHS was chosen because the agency oversees immigration and can come up with an accurate estimate of the number of noncitizens on voter rolls, Kobach said.

“This is a tactical shift by the president who remains very committed to finding the scope of voter fraud,” said Kobach, the architect of a controversial law that requires Kansas voters to provide their birth certificates or other proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. “In a perfect world, the commission would’ve moved swiftly and there wouldn’t be any lawsuits.”

And, according to Politico, Kobach has decided to free himself even from the pretense of impartiality.

Democrats and liberal groups rejoiced over the commission's demise Wednesday, but in an interview with POLITICO Wednesday night, Kobach said that exuberance is misplaced. "Anyone on the left needs to realize that by throwing the food in the air, they just lost a seat at the table," Kobach said.

By involving ICE, last seen rousting small children from their parents, Kobach also has freed himself from running an actual investigation, giving himself the leeway to run the xenophobic puppet show of his dreams.

The Kansas official said he expects officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and political appointees overseeing that agency to take over the commission's work and begin efforts to match state voter rolls to federal databases of noncitizens…Kobach acknowledged that ICE has little expertise in other types of potential voter fraud, such as multiple voting or voting by felons who've been disenfranchised, but he noted DHS has a broad mandate to address election security issues as critical U.S. infrastructure.

That this is part of DHS’s mandate is a question that likely will have to be litigated. (Sorry, Kris. More lawsuits.) But the important thing to remember is that the end of this commission isn’t even close to the end of attempts by this administration*—and by Kris Kobach, for whom it is a life’s dream—to keep people from voting who might vote for the other party. Now, though, they may have guys with guns doing their work for them.

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